et in pulverem reverteris
by Elspeth1
Summary: [Daredevil] He'd barely been to church since Karen died, not even for his and Milla's wedding, but Ash Wednesday was one of the few services he still attended, because it was one of the important ones.


**DISCLAIMER: **All characters and situation appearing herein were originally created by Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this work.

**Posted by:** Elspethdixon

**Pairings:** canon pairings

**Fandom:** Daredevil (post-Daredevil #93)

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**et in pulverem reverteris**

Matt always closed his eyes for the imposition of the ashes, even though it made no difference now. As a kid, he'd shut his eyes, tried not to wrinkle his nose as he held very still to have grime smeared across his forehead, and wondered what it was like to be dead. Was it dark, the way the cathedral became when he shut his eyes? Was it cold?

Something about the word "dust" sounded both dark and cold. And lonely.

That was when he had still thought his mother might be dead.

Now, he held very still and could feel every irregular particle of grit as Father Everett brushed the cross of ashes onto his skin, could smell the faint traces of the olive oil mixed in with the burned palm leaves. When he opened his eyes, it was, of course, still dark.

Even after he washed his face tonight, he would still be able to smell the ashes. It always took two days to get the last traces of the smell out of his pores.

_Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.1_

He'd barely been to church since Karen died, not even for his and Milla's wedding, but Ash Wednesday was one of the few services he still attended, because it was one of the important ones.

You couldn't properly do Easter without Lent, couldn't have Easter Sunday without Ash Wednesday.

For the past two years, he hadn't gone to mass on Easter. Karen was dead. His life was a mess. There was no glorious resurrection when it mattered.

His life was dust and ashes, and being symbolically baptized into death was weirdly satisfying.

This year, maybe he'd turn up for Easter, too. Father Everett would be thrilled.

_For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. _

Wrath, in every bruise and broken bone he joyously dealt out. The smell of blood as he punched Wilson Fisk so hard his own knuckles tore, carved a target into Bullseye's forehead, kicked a nameless con at Rykers so hard he could feel teeth shatter against his heel, because he couldn't kill the man who had taken Foggy from him yet, but he could make damn sure that nobody who tried to get friendly with him in the shower would ever repeat the mistake. The crack of bone as he broke the Owl's fingers, all the time hearing the whisper deep in the corner of his heart that wanted to break his neck.

Pride, in thinking he could beat the Kingpin at his own game and not pay the price.

Sloth… two or three times, last year with Milla, he'd gone an entire day without getting out of bed, because he hadn't had the energy to take a shower or get dressed. That had probably been depression. Letting Foggy handle all the paperwork in the office by himself, and making him argue the Jacobson case alone because "something came up" probably had been, too, but it was still inexcusable, as was making Spiderman deal with all the criminals who'd slunk out of the Kitchen and set up shop in Queens by himself.

Despair, he'd always been told, was the ultimate sin, because it bespoke a lack of faith in God's mercy. Until he'd heard Foggy's heartbeat outside his door, Matt had never expected to feel anything but despair again.

_Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice. _

Lent wouldn't have been the same without Foggy around to deliberately have pastrami subs from the kosher deli on the corner delivered to his office for lunch _every single Friday_. The 'deli on the corner' was now the deli three streets over and four blocks down, since they'd moved out of the old office years ago, but they called it that anyway out of unbreakable habit. It sold the best subs in the Kitchen, piled high with meat and oven-toasted since years before Quiznos had come up with it. Foggy always made certain to ask innocently if Matt wanted a sandwich too before calling to place his traditional order for one.

The deli on the corner did not make tuna subs. Nor did it offer vegetarian subs.

Just weeks ago, Matt had been sure that he'd never want to eat pastrami again--that, in fact, he'd never even be able to _smell_ it again without his throat closing up--and now he was actually looking forward to six Fridays worth of slow torture-by-deli-meat.

_Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God._

Karen had died here, right there in the aisle where parishioners were currently lining up to have their own foreheads marked with reminders of their own inevitable deaths. Died with Daredevil's billy club through her heart. He hadn't thrown it, but the fault was his anyway, for dragging her into the line of fire with him.

He hadn't killed Vanessa Fisk, but if she had been a man, if she hadn't been dying, he would have beaten her to death and grinned with satisfaction while he did it. For Foggy's death. For a death that hadn't even been _real_. He hadn't killed her, not because he'd fought back and regretted the impulse to murder, but because God had beaten him to the punch.

Matt wasn't (quite/yet/exactly) a killer, but people who died _because_ of him were just as dead. There was an FBI agent whose family would always wonder why their father/husband/brother/son had shot himself, whose kids would come home from school to the same absence Matt himself had once come home to. And, deep down, Matt knew part of him considered this an acceptable price for having his life back, for having Milla back, for having his license and his practice back. For having Foggy back.

_Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities._

"The mass is ended," Father Everett intoned solemnly. "Go in peace."

Matt left the cathedral by the front door, but he went home via the rooftops, Daredevil's mask hiding the gritty smudge on his forehead. He broke up a mugging two blocks from his brownstone, leaving the man who'd spun away from his victim and tried to brain Daredevil with a tire iron nursing a shattered wrist.

Witnesses of unregistered vigilante activity were legally required to report the incident to SHIELD. In Queens or Brooklyn, they might. This was Hell's Kitchen, and here, no one ever saw anything.

And even if they had, Matt Murdock had been legally declared not Daredevil. Besides, he calmly told the SHEILD agent who telephoned the office the next morning to ask leading questions so obvious even a first year law student would have known better, it was Ash Wednesday, and Mr. Murdock, like all good Catholics, had been at mass.

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1 quotes are from the Catholic/Anglican Ash Wednesday service and the 51st psalm. 


End file.
